Bankmen to protest against mergers, privatization
Times of India , Jan 16, 2011, NAGPUR:
Over 500 delegates from all over the country under the aegis of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), mainly comprising officers and employees of regional rural banks, will deliberate on problems faced by the rural banking sector at a two-day conference beginning in the city on Sunday. They will also finalize a nationwide bank strike in March-end or early April.
The AIBEA general secretary CH Venkatachalam announced that a protest march would go to Parliament on February 23, the opening day of the budge session. At least 25,000 members will participate in it to protest against the banking reforms policy and also the government's failure to contain prices and corruption.
The association is strongly opposed to the RBI approval for nationalized banks to give priority lending funds to microfinance companies. "These companies get funds at 8 to 10% and give it poor villagers at high rates of 25 to 50% at compounded rate of interests. Why should nationalized banks be party to such exploitation of rural masses. We want this privatization of banking service to stop," said Venkatachalam who is in the city for the conference.
"We are also against the government's plans to merge the existing 26 nationalized banks into 4 or 5 big entities. This idea of consolidation will serve no purpose. Instead, the government should implement the policy of spreading banks' network and open up a bank branch in every village of the country," said the trade union leader.
According to him, around 90% of the population has no access to banking services. While 60 crore people are deprived of banking facilities, Venkatachalam claimed that 83% of the country's farmers were denied crop loan and had to depend on private moneylenders or the microfinance companies.
"AIBEA is striving for making nationalized banks more people-friendly," he said and added that computerization of all work had opened up dangers of lack of accountability as the new technology was not as foolproof as the manual system of accounting.
Venkatachalam also opposed the government borrowing from World Bank to capitalize Indian nationalized banks. "The conditions will only hit the social sector lending," he explained.